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This paper is intended to propose a relationship-based theory of the firm (R’BT), an
alternative to the transaction cost theory. The R’BT takes relationship disharmony
(rather than transaction costs) as its basic unit of analysis of the nature of the firm, and
argues relationship disharmony derives from conflict of interests, a problem faced by
any human organizations; to reduce the conflict of interests, the best way is to
harmonize relationships by mutually accommodating or internalizing the other party’s
interests into its own consideration; the degree of harmony or disharmony in the
relationships will in turn determine the performance of the organization in question.
This paper provides a completely different explanation from the transaction cost
economics when addressing issues such like the existence, boundary and internal
organization of the firm. Also discussed are its implications for organizational
management and economy.

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Entrepreneurship and the theory of the firm are two of the fastest-growing fields in eco-nomics and management. The two fields developed largely in isolation and are only now beginning to be brought together. We argue that each field has much to learn from the other and that combining them yields a better theory of the firm and a fuller understand-ing of the nature and effects of entrepreneurship in the economy. Specifically, the Knightian concept of entrepreneurship as judgment, combined with the Austrian ap-proach to capital heterogeneity, leads to a number of unconventional insights about the nature, boundaries, and internal organization of the firm. The judgment perspective also shifts attention from the discovery or recognition of entrepreneurial opportunities to the exploitation of those opportunities through the acquisition, combination, and recombina-tion of resources, adding to our understanding of the causes and consequences of entre-preneurship.

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This paper concerns Public Private Partnership (PPP) contracts in concern to the coming new 2014/24IEU public procurement directive. The new EU public procurement directive gives the public authority the opportunity to negotiate PPPs much more when they are implemented in national law. An opportunity the member states should consider using when procuring a PPP. This paper looks at the negotiation and contracting of a PPP in an economic theoretical and EU public procurement perspective and discusses how to establish an efficient PPP contract under a strong public law doctrine. Governments should consider tendering out PPP projects in the spirit of joint utility because joint utility can increase the concept of more value for money; the
cornerstone of the PPP concept. This paper discusses the positive gains from negotiation and compares it with the upcoming possibilities in the EU public procurement law. Furthermore, the paper seeks to establish a connection between public law, private law and the efficient PPP contract by drawing upon economic theory and empirical contract data from UK, US and Danish partnering contracts from the construction industry and the aim of contracting joint utility. Joint utility can increase the concept of more value for money; the cornerstone of the PPP concept. The paper draws upon existing legal
content regarding collaboration and common goals and game theory to explain the benefits from implementing similar clauses in PPP contracts.

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General practitioners’ classification of patients with medically unexplained symptoms

Mik-Meyer, Nanna; Obling, Anne Roelsgaard(Oxford, 2012)

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Abstract:

In encounters between general practitioners (GPs) and patients with medically
unexplained symptoms (MUS), the negotiation of the sick role is a social process.
In this process, GPs not only use traditional biomedical diagnostic tools but also
rely on their own opinions and evaluations of a patient’s particular circumstances
in deciding whether that patient is legitimately sick. The doctor is thus a
gatekeeper of legitimacy. This article presents results from a qualitative interview
study conducted in Denmark with GPs concerning their approach to patients
with MUS. We employ a symbolic interaction approach that pays special
attention to the external validation of the sick role, making GPs’ accounts of such
patients particularly relevant. One of the article’s main findings is that GPs’
criteria for judging the legitimacy of claims by those patients that present with
MUS are influenced by the extent to which GPs are able to constitute these
patients as people with social problems and problematic personality traits.

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While scholars agree that planning and preparation is key to a negotiation’s effectiveness, negotiation research has largely focused solely on what happens at the negotiation table and little is known about what occurs in preparation for a negotiation meeting. This paper aims to redress the balance by clarifying which preparation and planning activities are undertaken to conduct a complex business negotiation compared to the recommendations found in the literature. In contrast to the majority of negotiation research this study follows a qualitative research design multiple methods of inquiry and draws upon data grounded in a large global industrial company. The results suggest that a significant number of activities recommended in the literature concerning negotiation preparation and planning do not take place in the real-world. In addition, the study demonstrated the inherent weakness of relying on an open-ended survey as the sole data source through which to understand an internal-organizational phenomenon.

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This paper makes a contribution towards a more nuanced understanding of the ambiguous and contested relationship between neoliberalism and CSR (corporate social responsibility). It challenges stereotypical depictions of CSR as a neoliberal discourse and argues that there is a need for greater awareness of the varieties of liberalism at play in CSR. The paper is concerned with neoliberalism both in regard to the theory and the practice of CSR. Theoretically, it presents the Foucauldian understanding of neoliberalism and neoliberal governmentality as its primary means of identifying and analyzing processes of neoliberalization. On the practical side, it focuses on the neoliberalization of governmental approaches to CSR.

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This paper is about Poulantzas, historical materialism, international relations, and the current
crisis. My purpose is to discuss how some Poulantzian theoretical contributions can be applied
to the study of subject matters that are the focus of academic fields such as International
Relations (IR), International Political Economy (IPE), International Politics, World Politics
and others. I deliberately abstain from singling out any of these disciplines or fields or labels
and from trying to define them precisely, because one of my arguments is that historical materialism
(HM) is a research program2 that contains its own theoretical definition of the object
under study. This object, with inspiration from Poulantzas’ notion of the imperialist chain and
his general theory of society, I will define as the global social formation or for short, world
society.

The Internet is often associated with “a placeless world, (…) and a form of reality
grounded in technology rather than nature” (Adams 2009, 115). Many commentators
argue that the combination of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and
cyberspace disrupts a number of factors that underpin traditional forms of cultural and
social interaction and thus the relationship between place, community and identity.”
(Dodge & Kitchen 2001, 33) Moreover, an argument often heard is that media are not able
to reproduce a unique moment tied to a particular site; therefore media (no matter
whether they are analog or digital) are not able to transmit cultural events such as a
concert without losing its specific “aura” (Benjamin). The case of the Digital Concert Hall
(DCH) by Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra challenges these arguments. The DCH is a virtual
place and communication platform that offers a “quasi authentic concert experience on a
home computer” (Kolbe 2009, 12). However, the DCH is extremely bounded to the
concrete place of the concert hall in Berlin mainly due to the technology installed in the
hall. In this paper, I will argue that the virtual place of the DCH is a new media initiative
from the classical music scene that is not placeless, neither it is weakening the physical
place of the concert hall in Berlin. Rather, the virtual platform DCH is strengthening the
physical place as well as the brand Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

The project described in this report was carried out with support from The Ministry of Justice’s Research Pool. The aim of the project is to examine the effects of Amending Act no. 213/2002, amending the rules on consumer sales in the Danish Sale of Goods Act. The amendments were part of Denmark’s implementation of Directive 1999/44/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on certain aspects of the sale of consumer goods and associated guarantees. The Amending Act came into force on 24 April 2002, having effect on consumer sales made on and after 1 January 2002. At the time of completion of this report, the Amending Act had been in force for more than two and a half years. In the planning of this project, we assumed that at this point in time sufficient experience with the new rules would be available, enabling us to get an impression of its practical consequences for businesses. Also, we assumed that the respondents could still recall the prior state of the law, making it possible for us to gather sufficient information to compare the situation before and after the Amending Act entered into force.
The Amending Act involved a number of amendments to the Danish Sale of Goods Act. Certain amendments, such as those concerning the rules on lack of conformity, were mainly clarifications of the current state of the law. As these in fact did not change the state of the law, they were not intended to change practice either. As this study is empirically oriented, these amendments fall outside its scope. Consequently, in this study we have chosen to focus on the consequences of the following amendments:
Under the new provisions in s. 77a(3), any lack of conformity with the contract is assumed to have existed at the time of delivery if such lack of conformity becomes apparent within six months of the time of delivery.
Where there is a lack of conformity, the consumer in general has a right to choose between replacement and repair under s. 78. Replacement is no longer contingent on the lack of conformity constituting a fundamental breach. Furthermore, it is no longer possible for the seller to decline a request for replacement by offering to repair. If the consumer’s request for replacement or repair would impose disproportionate costs on the seller, or if this remedy is impossible, the seller can, however, decline the request.
In s. 83, the limitation period for complaints has been extended from one to two years from the time of delivery to the consumer. In s. 54, the corresponding limitation period on other sales than consumer sales has been extended from one to two years to avoid sellers in the retail trade from being caught in between their consumers and their suppliers. As before, s. 83 cannot be derogated from to the detriment of the consumer. It is, however, still possible for the parties to derogate from s. 54 concerning other sales than consumer sales.
The fundamental question of this study is whether the mentioned alteration to the state of the law has resulted in a notable change in the behaviour of the relevant players. Of the relevant players, our principal focus is the retail trade, whose situation we have examined by way of a questionnaire survey. To a limited extent we have also looked into any changes in the behaviour of wholesalers/producers, mainly by way of interviews with trade organisations. Finally, we have examined the application of the new rules, mainly by looking at the Danish Consumer Complaints Board.

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This is a slightly revised version of an article I published in 1991 (Ove K. Pedersen,
1991, “Nine Questions to a Neo-Institutional Theory in Political Science”,
Scandinavian Political Studies, vol. 14, no. 2, p. 125-148). The purpose of the article 16
years ago is the same as the purpose of presenting this note today - to point to a number
of methodological and theoretical problems which have to be discussed in connection
with a theory of institutional change. No analytical approach for the study of institutions
will be presented. No description of actual institutions or institutional change will be
given. Rather, nine philosophical-methodological questions rarely raised and never
answered in institutional theory will be asked.

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In Denmark, as in many other welfare states, we strongly believe that problems
within the public sector can be solved by means of better management. For quite
some years it has been assumed that management leads to more control over and
better quality of welfare. Politicians and public servants have therefore been
concerned with how the individual hospital, nursing home and school can develop its
management. This has created a somewhat strange problem: How is it possible from
a position at the top of a governing hierarchy to create management capacity from
below?
This thesis is about how Danish local government, municipalities, have developed
understandings of governing relations between themselves and the public school
over the last 40 years. The thesis tracks how municipalities have gradually assigned
organizational independence to the individual school and increased their
expectations of its self-management....